Wednesday, June 10, 2009

did you guess correctly?

Well, there were some great guesses about this mystery substance and now it's time for the big reveal:

It's a bar of soap that has been cut into pieces and then microwaved. It was part of a project we found here called "soap moon rocks". Because there were not any photos posted on the site I was never 100% sure we were doing it right but it all turned out in the end. The resulting 'moon rock' looked something like a big marble and both boys had a blast with it. Strangely it would make colored foam when you lathered it up but it didn't stain skin or anything. So you can imagine the fun to be had with that. I would have taken a photo of said 'rock' but it was played with so immediately and vigorously that it was gone before I had a chance.

I don't know about you all but here at my house we are huge fuse bead fans. We only get them out once in awhile though. It helps preserve what little sanity I have left if I don't have to pick up those teeny beads from the all over the floor ever single day. This is an activity that Peter will sit and work on for sometimes up to an hour. He has inherited both his father's and his mother's attraction to precision work so this suits him just fine.

and I usually get a little trinket out of the deal as well.

We also tried this activity which turned out to be a dud. I think it was due to poor planning on my part but I ended up doing most of it and as soon as we hung it up it became a tangled mess.

One afternoon we made paper airplanes with a neighborhood friend and that turned out to be a smashing success. Who knew a folded piece of printer paper could turn me into supermom? not me! They loved it. I suggested at one point that they decorate their planes (because that is what I would do of course) and off they scurried to Peter's room. After 30 minutes of silence I started sniffing around for smoke but to my surprise I found them happily coloring away on their planes. Again, who knew? Here is the site we used for some easy beginner-style paper airplanes.

So by now you are probably thinking, "that's all you've got for us, Corinne? fuse beads and paper airplanes??" Patience everyone, I'm just getting warmed up. I have to save my big guns for mid Summer when the boredom really kicks in, right?

I'll leave you with some more children's book illustration love:

These are from an amazing book called Ten Mice for Tet. The illustrations are embroidered by PhamVietDinh and are they ever gorgeous! They will kind of blow your mind a little if you are a fan of needlework.